Liner Insanity (this post comes with a moral to the story)

So pictured above is my Birds Of A Feather painting sporting a white linen liner. I hate the white. It does nothing for the piece which I was pretty sure was the case when I ordered it but I was hoping by some small miracle that it would somehow be magical when I put it on the painting;. Alas no.

Now I have covered my share of liners in the past and it’s kinda messy and much easier to do when the liner is yet to be assembled (as this one clearly is) so I thought I’d cheat fate by trying to create a colored liner without covering it in fabric.

My totally brilliant and genius idea?

Dye it.

Yup so I went to my local Hobby Lobby and nearly through my shoulder out with all the patting myself on the back because i used my superior intellect and creative genius to get a finished result with far less effort. I select the dye called Tulip Red though was very drawn to Flamingo Pink and thought I might be mocking the fates by passing up on that color. In the end it really mattered not at all.

So I return home, covering my framing table with multiple layers of cardboard and mix up half the packet. I sponge it on and gasp! … it is hot pink.

I run to the bathroom pour out most of the batch and dump the remaining dye in my bowl and dissolve and try again. This time it covers as red. Whew!

After the first coat dries it still looks a little pink so I add another coat… and another … and another. After the 4th coat it looks like a good red to me. I go home that night still happy despite the dyeing taking more time than it would have to cover the liner in fabric.

And then a horrific thought occurs to me. What might happen if the newly died liner ever gets wet. Ruined Flamingos is my guess. Mind you it would have to get really really wet. But then again I do do outdoor art fairs. So ….

At any rate I plan to spray on a coat of fixative (yeah like that would help) before assembling.

I go in the next morning looking forward to putting the flamingos in the newly colored liner and “What the F…?”

No idea why it did this but over the next few days it had morphed into a myriad of colors. At one point it was completely that milky pink color but then it started reversing and getting dark areas again. After a brief moment or two of pondering the marketing strategy of calling it a mood liner (You know it changes color to suit your mood … or the humidity) or perhaps saying it was possessed by the spirit of flamingos long passed I opted to just cover it in fabric. (you know like I should have done from the beginning.)

I go to our locl hardware to get some spray glue and my option are unknown cheapy McCheapo Brand X glue or 3M which is my spray glue of choice. However they only have a huge can for like $20 so I opted fo Brand X and hope it holds.

Currently the liner now looks like this. I plan to make a new squidoo page on covering liners (most likely next winter when I have time) and so will go over the steps thoroughly though my photos leave something to be desired. I will of course cover the topic here as well.

Lesson Learned
So here’s the kicker. I will more than likely buy another liner (most likely raw – meaning not already covered in linen) and cover it. I will also more than likely buy some 3M glue while I’m at it. The idea of the dye bleeding when wet is freaking me out and I can’t believe it hadn’t even crossed my mind until AFTER I dyed the thing. So the moral of the story?

Do it right the first time.

Trying to be clever in the hopes of saving a bit of time has cost me a package of dye, a can of cheapy McCheapo spray glue and a perfectly good liner that I have now ruined and will need to replace and much, much more time as I have dye it four time and in the end will be covering 2 liners.

Ah well. Had it worked I would have been touting myself as a framing wizard of unparalleled brilliance. Sigh. Maybe next time

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I am a working artist living in a small rural town in Iowa. I own Wild Faces Gallery & Frame where I spend a great deal of my time in order to keep my critters in kibble and hay. This blog is is a place for me to showcase my artwork, my business and the wanderings of my mind.